


Diagnosis: Doctor

by kesomon



Category: Doctor Who (1963), House M.D.
Genre: Eavesdropping, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-19
Updated: 2006-09-19
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:51:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6240070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesomon/pseuds/kesomon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eavesdropping is wrong. Except when it's your boss arguing with a guy dressed in a circus tent and yelling about aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diagnosis: Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> Set after S2Ep3: Cane and Able.
> 
> Originally posted to FFN 9/19/2006. Edited for spelling mistakes but otherwise posted in its original format.

Eavesdropping was wrong. Especially eavesdropping on your boss. It was cardinal rule number…well, not one, but it was high on that list of cardinal rules.

Then that boss had all but thrown them out of the conference room and began a heated argument with an Englishman dressed in the most startling and colorful knee-length frock coat that had to have ever existed.

At that point, neither Allison Cameron nor Robert Chase cared if they'd get into trouble. Chase had his ear pressed up against the glass and had a dumbstruck expression on his face; Allison thanked the stars the curtains had been drawn far enough so they couldn't be directly seen by the occupants of the room. Since House had reclaimed his cane and bad attitude, he had gotten into the habit of whacking people with it.

 

But let's back up, shall we?

 

It all started around 9am that morning. The doors had only barely been unlocked for a couple of hours, and House had summoned his ducklings to kill time buffing up on their medical conditions. They were in fairly cheerful moods, all things considering, due in part to the little 'alien-abducted' boy having gone home a few days previous, rested and recovering and doing quite well. House was at his white board, as usual, scribbling a rather bad picture of some unidentifiable internal organ, and Chase hid what seemed like the hundredth yawn behind his hand.

"If this meeting with Cuddy was scheduled for noon, I don't see why we had to be here at 6am on what was supposed to be a day mostly off." He managed to grumble, his words garbled slightly by another massive yawn. "Is this coffee even caffeinated?"

"Yes Chase, it's caffeinated," Cameron sighed, looking as bedraggled as her partner. "I made it, I should know."

"And knowing Cameron, she probably spat in it to spite me and my almighty early-morning cheerfulness." House smirked, turning away from the white board and capping his trusted black pen smartly. "Which is why I stopped at the atrium before coming here. Now, what is that?"

Chase, who had been hesitantly inspecting his coffee mug (you never could be sure with House's sarcasm) glanced blearily up and squinted at the odd drawing. "Is it a duck? It looks like a duck."

House looked on the verge of one of his sardonic remarks when he halted mid-syllable, his eyes wandering past Chase with a suddenly darkened expression of dread and confusion.

There was a man in the hallway, fiddling with some sort of remote control-looking device. He was of average height, broad in the shoulders, a shock of blonde curls framing his head, and he seemed to be scowling at whatever the device was telling him. It was his dress sense that warranted a double-take, and the ducklings stared dumbfounded. His trousers were yellow with black pinstripes, his waistcoat a blaze of very colorful paisley, his shoes a green hue with orange spats, and to top it off, he wore a patchwork coat so multicolored and outrageous that Cameron instantly found herself mentally humming "A Coat of Many Colors."

The stranger looked up suddenly at them, a look of astonishment crossed his face, and before any of them could say a word, he pushed open the door with all the air of someone who _belonged_.

"Gregory House, I should've known!" He exclaimed with a mixture of recognition and resentment. "Every time I pick up a Derosian implant energy reading I seem to run into YOU! What brash and utterly stupid thing have you done this time?"

Cameron and Chase gaped in astonishment.

Two minutes later House had gone from paled with dread to being sufficiently flustered, and shoved the pair out the door, slamming it shut behind them and hiking the curtains closed. And that was how the two ducklings found themselves trying like hell to hear what was going on inside those walls.

House looked rather worn and sour in mood as he focused his weight on the table edge instead of his aching leg. The man in the multicolored coat was gesturing wildly with his hands, and looked to be berating the doctor with an accusing finger being pointed and jabbed at the air. Things seemed to calm down a moment, as the conversation turned civil, before House said something that made the man scoff and blink incredulously. And it was back to ranting.

The pair jumped up and scattered to the far wall as the stranger huffed at House and headed for the door.

"You of all people, Gregory, should know not to shrug off such tales as pure ludicrous nonsense!" the man's haughty attitude rang clear in his bluster as he backed out of the doorway, his ridiculous beeping control box pitifully flashing green and red lights gone unnoticed as he waved it in his hand. "Alien abduction and implants in the neck, it's classic Derosian! I suppose you've forgotten all about that night in medical school, good grief man! We only had to detox thirty undergraduates after we liberated their laboratories!"

"Would you keep your voice down, you imbecile, people can hear you!" House hissed angrily, limping over to him. "The samples are all down in the lab, I'm sure you know where, you always do."

The man bristled irritably. "Imbecile? Imbecile! Humph! That's rich, coming from you! Hallucinations caused by dormant twin cells, ha! You humans always have to find an explanation that your tiny minds can wrap around!"

House glared at him. "Just get your bloody anachronistic tech and your alien implants and get out of my hospital before you set fire to the whole west wing like last time, Doctor."

The man now labeled as a doctor of some kind seemed to realize that he was standing in the open hall now, and that there were quite a few people staring, including Cameron and Chase, who were staring pointedly at the two men with a mixture of shock and amazement and utter confusion, and in Chase's case, a hint of smug I-knew-it. The Doctor squared his shoulders and cleared his throat, threw House a haughty you-haven't-heard-the-last-of-this look, and stalked off down the hall towards the labs.

Cameron cleared her throat, giving her boss a sideways look. "Alien implants, sir?"

House glowered at his underling and limped off in the opposite direction, muttering something about needing a drink.

Chase gawped after the colorful man as he disappeared around a corner, then realized security would probably want to know that a stranger was trying to steal samples from the labs, and ducked inside to ring them up. However, when they arrived on the scene, the lock had been picked, the files and samples from the "alien-abductee" had vanished, and one perimeter guard, when questioned, swore in front of Cuddy that he'd seen a battered old blue box nestled in the bushes simply fade into thin air with a melodic grinding noise some fifteen minutes later.


End file.
